Up to 700 local inhabitants found work on the Ndwedwe Rural Water Supply Scheme in KwaZulu-Natal The reticulation for stages 2 to 5 of the Ndwedwe Rural Water Supply Scheme in KwaZulu-Natal, one of the projects nominated for the Port Natal-Ebhodwe Joint Services Board Award for Excellence in Labour-based Construction, was one of the largest labour-based rural water supply projects in the country.

The upgrading by Grinaker Civil Engineering Cape of a 24 km stretch of the scenic Gordon's Bay/Rooi Els road, which skirts the Atlantic seaboard in the Western Cape, has provided double the number of jobs originally anticipated for the previously unemployed in local communities

Water is an important part of development in rural areas. Women are generally the only fit people left to take care of the family in these areas, and water plays an important role in their lives. The availability of water affects the livelihood of rural women, who have to ensure that socio-economic development of their families and communities takes place and is sustained.

How does a metropolitan council go about providing the gamut of users with appropriate levels of service? Durban Metro sets a good example. Securing payment for services, in particular water and sanitation services, is a matter that is accorded a high priority in the deliberations of water authority management in South Africa. If those who are not paying are allowed to continue to do so, then there is a very real risk that those who are paying will retaliate against what is perceived to be a discriminatory practice and will also withhold payment.

In his epic Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire the Victorian author Edmund Gibbon wrote: 'Corruption, the most infallible symptom of constitutional liberty.' Gibbon was scarcely a dispassionate observer, but in the case of South Africa we must emphasise that the promulgation of the Corruption Act, 1992, preceded our constitutional liberty by two years and replaced similar legislation enacted in 1958.